Home page keyword effecting internal page ranking
-
Hello,
My client has a second keyword for the home page that is competitive.
The home page is not being ranked for this keyword. Instead, an internal category page is ranking.
This internal category page is more relevant than the home page - it shows the categories for the actual products that this term refers to.
But everyone around us in Google's page results has far more backlinks than the internal page, and we're all heavily optimized for this term.
My question is, is it safe to pull the second term off of the home page or is this internal page strong because it is somehow being strengthened by the home page optimization?
-
Sorry for the misunderstanding - I'm just talking about both title tags
-
Since Google already found the most relevant page on your site for the kw (combination), I would say that things would not change. I assume that the general site topic remains the same - even though you remove the text from your homepage (about how much text is it? just text? links as well? <- if yes .. this is where it gets tricky).
-
Welcome. As far as things like that go, I'm not the most well-versed unfortunately. If you are linking to that page with relevant anchor text, then it seems possible because your home page is at least somewhat relevant to the keyword, but it's tough to say.
-
Thanks Eric,
I'd like to take the second keyword off of the home page to focus on the (first) main home page keyword, which we're slipping for. Do you think the home page strength (with my second keyword) is somehow supporting my internal page with the same keyword (the second keyword)?
-
Internal pages are almost always more relevant to specific phrases than is the home page. If you run a website that sells doors, the home page is going to mention regular doors, french doors, etc, but when someone searches for French Doors, the SE is going to send them to your french doors page not the home page because they're not looking for doors of all types. They want french doors.
If your home page is still relevant to the keyword, keep it there. Just don't keyword stuff.
-
What is it you want to pull from the homepage? Some copy-text of a couple of hundred words?
I would recommend not to pull it off, as it works and seems to work good. What is it you want to gain by removing it from the homepage?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Should we rename and update a page or create a new page entirely?
Hi Moz Peoples! We have a small site with a simple site navigation, with only a few links on the nav bar. We have been doing some work to create a new page, which will eventually replace one of the links on the nav bar. The question we are having is, is it better to rename the existing page and replace its content and then wait for the great indexer to do its thing, or perm delete the page and replace it with the new page and content? Or is this a case where it really makes no difference as long as the redirects are set up correctly?
On-Page Optimization | | Parker8180 -
Building a new page: What on-page SEO would you build in?
Hi all, Building a new page for a fairly competitive keyword. Need to make sure the on-page SEO is pretty top notch, because link building (including internal links) will be difficult. I've optimised the meta description, the alt tags and image names, and included the keyword in the Title Tags. Not a great deal I can do with regards to optimising for mobile or considering migrating to the AMP project because this is handled externally. What else would you suggest? Cheers in advance, Rhys
On-Page Optimization | | SwanseaMedicine1 -
Why is Google replacing my meta title with the business name on home page?
For all queries that return the home page, Google is not showing my meta title. Instead it replaced it with the official business name which of course makes it harder to rank for key terms since they don't exist now in the meta title. You can see this is you search on "mt view estate planning attorney". The site in question is dureelaw.com and the title showing is "The Law Office of Daniel L. DuRee." View the source and you'll see my meta title. Why is Google substituting it?
On-Page Optimization | | katandmouse0 -
On-page Optimisation for Keywords That Are Not Natural Language
I would like to know your thoughts on optimising a page for a keyword phrase that is not how you would normally write it. When someone searches they tend to use the (no pun intended) key words relating to their query rather than natural language. Using these keywords leads to copy that doesn't read well but not doing so gets you a poor mark on On-page graders like Moz. My clients target an international market but are region specific so, for example, I might want to optimise for 'safari lodge zambia' or variations of that. Alternatively it might be optimising for a specific tour so the keyword might include a region highlight and the 'safari' or 'tour' qualifier which again can sometimes be problematic. In the title, I would normally use the name of the tour | company name but that may not match an exact likely keyword search and in the main copy/description it would be unnatural to incorporate the keyword phrase.
On-Page Optimization | | intergise0 -
Lead With Branded Keywords or Descriptive Keywords in Page Title for (Niche) Site?
Our site is hingeheads.com, and our products and product catalog are unique in two ways. For one our product is not something that people are generally aware of, and secondly our entire product catalog consists of different variations of the same product. **Catalog Overview: **http://hingeheads.com/collections/all Product Example: http://hingeheads.com/products/dolphin I keep wondering if it is better to lead the title with "branded keywords" [1] or with "descriptive keywords" [2]? Dolphin HingeHead | Unique Home Decor & Gift Idea | HingeHeads Dolphin Decor Accessories & Unique Gift Ideas | HingeHeads I am currently going with the second solution, but I am always wondering if that's the right/better solution. I am curious to hear feedback from people who have more experience with this than I do. How would you structure the title for our product pages? Thanks! Kai
On-Page Optimization | | hingeheads0 -
Redirect and page ranking
We used to have a good page rank of Google, but now our page rank dropped to zero. A few months ago we did a redirect from our www.???.com to non-www.???.com, because non-www.???.com is now our main website. We also have a number of other domains which we redirect to our main website non-www.???.com Do you think these redirects are causing the problem, and if so what can we do to fix it? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | poupette0 -
Why home page ranks higher than keyword-optimized page
We have a page that is optimized for the keyword "job scheduling". A search on the keyword "job scheduling" results in this page not ranking at all, while our home page (uc4.com) ranks third. Could you provide some ideas/suggestions as to why this would be the case and how to make our job scheduling page rank higher? Thanks, claudia
On-Page Optimization | | claudmar0 -
Keyword cannabilization ... I just cant face 301'ing good, well aged pages
Hi Mozzers Ive read a little about your views on cannabilization and would like to run my situation by you. I have 2 pages lets say (a) and (b) that rank ok for a main keyword. However (a) desite being nice and old is not ageing well and is starting to slip a little - its getting harder to spread the link juice so Ive been thinking should I ditch page (a) and focus solely on page (b) for this keyword. Page (b) seems to be getting better serp value right now. What I find hard is that page (a) has been around a while (6 years) and I cant bring myself to 301 it assuming thats what you would normally do to avoid cannabilization. But at the end of the day its a business page and if its failing - yet could inject even more bounce into page (b) it must be worth considering. What is the best way forward here..? Im not sure how quick any transition of link juice would take ? Also what to do with the unique content on page (a)? Seems such a shame to just ditch it. Cheers fella's Morch
On-Page Optimization | | Morch0